A pleasant surprise: “Your Name.” (Kimi no Na wa.), Makoto Shinkai’s latest movie that has been attracting a lot of attention in Japan and worlwide, has just passed Hayao Miyazaki’s “A Wind Rises” (Kaze Tachinu) in sales.

As reported by Eiga.com, the Japanese box office weekly rankings for October 1-2 has been released, with Your Name. successfully amassing 650.000 people and 7.9 million yen in two days. Your Name. stands strong with its 1st place standing unabated for six weeks straight and a cumulative revenue of 12.8 billion yen. This is heavily influenced by several factors like the positive reviews the movie is receiving, the panel exhibition held in every Tower Records store, and Your Name.’s line sticker being released on September 29. The movie has now surpassed A Wind Rises (12.02 billion yen) in terms of all-time box office sales and is closing in on Ponyo (15.5 billion yen). Your name. has now become the 6th highest-grossing Japanese-produced film in Japan, and the 5th for Japanese animated films.

This marks the first time a non-Ghibli Japanese animated film passed a Ghibli film in overall sales; not to mention, this happened within sixth weeks after Your Name.’s launch, which is ridiculous in terms of numbers. Your Name. opened in the last week of August (August 26), which is not considered a particularly strong period, and yet it still didn’t stop the movie to break the wall impenetrable by Shinkai’s previous movies which had limited audience and viewings.

Your Name. is a movie about two teenagers, Taki and Mitsuha, who lives in different environments: Taki is a high school boy living in Tokyo who has an interest in fine arts, while Mitsuha is a high school girl from the countryside who wishes for a life in the city. It tells the story of both characters living the other’s life in their dreams, how they start getting drawn into each other, and the hidden secret behind it. Your Name. is directed by Makoto Shinkai, an animation director well-known for 5 Centimeters per Second and Garden of Words. You can check out my review about the movie here.

With my prediction coming true, I guess the hype will still continue on in the next few weeks; let’s see if Your Name. can close its gap on Ponyo in the next three weeks or stop in its track.